


Sun Slung Low

by mysterytour



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, siblings arguing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 18:16:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12965496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysterytour/pseuds/mysterytour
Summary: Peter wiped the window pane with his sleeve. The only sign that that house wasn’t lived in was the thick mould blooming around the edges of the frame. There was an open book on the coffee table. A sweater folded on the arm of the couch.Erik hadn’t been home in more than two years. The life he'd had in this house was well and truly over.





	Sun Slung Low

Peter wiped the window pane with his sleeve. The only sign that that house wasn’t lived in was the thick mould blooming around the edges of the frame. There was an open book on the coffee table. A sweater folded on the arm of the couch. He could picture Erik curled up with a cup of tea, listening to some boring radio play or another. He couldn’t picture Madga or Nina because he didn’t know what they looked like.

Erik hadn’t been home in more than two years. His family was dead. The life he'd had in this house was well and truly over.

Peter pulled the empty duffle bag back onto his shoulder.

‘Come on; let’s get it over with.’ Wanda said.

They’d been speaking Serbian since they got off the plane, because Wanda thought it would make them less conspicuous. Peter thought it was horseshit, but went along with it, anyway. Serbian was their mother’s first language; the language they’d learned from their grandmother. Nana had been dead for eighteen years and Peter could barely remember her, but using Serbian brought back the smell of her pork stew with crystal clarity. He made a mental note to ask their mom for the recipe when they got home.

Wanda forced the key into the lock and jiggled aggressively until the latch clicked. The door stuck in its frame, and she had to give it a good shove with her shoulder to make it open. Peter followed her into the hallway. Inside was even colder than it was outside. Wanda pulled her scarf around her chin. Peter almost took his shoes off out of shear habit, because Erik had a rule against shoes in the house.

Three coats hung on the hall stand. The wood was almost stained black with age. Peter wondered if Erik had bought it second hand, or if it had been made by someone in Madga’s family. Peter tugged on the sleeve of the coat that belonged to Nina. It was damp to the touch. Wet, almost. The ladybird print and little red toggles that fastened it were unbearably cute. The feeling of unease that had been building since he booked the plane tickets broke and turned into wretchedness.

‘Are you gonna be alright?’ Wanda asked him. Her tone was soft.

‘Yeah.’ Peter said, ‘You?’

‘Yeah.’ Wanda knew that she’d be alright and that Peter wouldn’t. Sooner or later, it’d come spilling out of him.

They went into the kitchen together. There was a kettle on the hob and a bowl of something shrivelled and black on the counter. Fruit, probably.

‘Okay, this is depressing.’ Wanda observed.

‘Really, Wanda, is that what it is?’ Peter snapped.

‘Why are you being such a dick?’

‘Because it’s a dumb thing to say!’

‘Whatever.’ Wanda changed the subject, ‘Does Erik want anything from the kitchen?’

‘Dunno. The only specific thing he asked for was the photo albums.’

‘You go find them.’ Wanda told her brother, ‘I’ll look around in here.’

The albums were on a book shelf in the living room. Peter found them immediately, because Erik kept them in exactly the same place in his apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. He only had a couple of small albums back New York, one of which was entirely devoted to Peter, which he found both touching and embarrassing (there were none of Wanda, who thought Erik was bad news and refused to meet him, to their mother’s relief). In this house he had four large, ring bound albums which were housed on the outsize shelf, along with dictionaries in Ukrainian, Romanian and French, a Russian thesaurus and several history books. Peter spread them out on the coffee table. It wasn’t necessary to look—all he had to do was ship them to Erik.

In the kitchen, Wanda clattered about, opening and closing cupboards. China clanked.

He looked.

Nina, as a baby. No more than six months old. Her wide, glassy blue eyes and wet lips hurt his heart. He thought: _this baby is dead. She was your sister and now she’s dead._ He turned the page. Madga in her hospital bed, newborn Nina in her crib.

Peter opened another album. Erik and Nina, feeding the ducks. Madga’s shadow stretched across the grass, rippling on the surface of the pond. It was all too much. He left the photograph albums as they were and went upstairs. The first door he tried turned out to be the toilet. The water in the bowl was frozen solid.

Nina’s room was the one next to the bathroom. Peter had to force himself to step through the threshold—any hesitation would’ve made it impossible. The bed was under the window. There was a desk against the wall. Dolls scattered on the floor. The way they were arranged suggested that Nina had left them right in the middle of a game. Peter sat on the floor, set the bag down and picked up a Barbie doll. Nancy had this exact one when she was little, except she’d drawn on the face and cut it’s hair short. Nina had kept hers immaculate. Nancy named all of her dolls; this one was named Jessica, after the little girl next door. Perhaps Nina named her dolls, too. He imagined Nina, slowly decaying in her coffin. Then, he imagined the same thing happening to Nancy. It made him want to cry or tear his hair out, but he couldn’t get it out of his head. He’d been having thoughts like this ever since he’d started getting to know Erik, who hadn’t said much about his family, but it had got Peter thinking about how he had another sister, and that he had lost her, and that the same thing could happen to Nancy. It was irrational, but when he was having these thoughts felt so real and so possible.

Downstairs, the backdoor slammed. Peter didn’t know what the hell Wanda was up to, but it hyperbolically pissed him off. He placed the doll inside the duffle bag and rubbed his hands together. Already his fingers were numb. It was so cold up here. He stood and surveyed the rest of the room. The mattress on the bed was bare and marred with a dark brown stain. He scraped at it with his thumbnail and inspected the residue that collected underneath.

Blood.

Nina’s blood.

He pushed back the net curtain and looked out of the window. Wanda was standing out in the woods, her back to the house. Peter tapped on the glass, and when she turned around, gestured for her to come inside.

She did.

Peter showed her the stain.

‘Jesus fucking Christ.’ Wanda exclaimed, ‘Did Erik tell you what happened?’

‘Only that the pigs did it. I didn’t ask for details.’ Peter said.

‘Why would they shoot her in her bed?’

‘I don’t know, Wanda. Why do you keep asking these stupid-ass questions?’

‘I don’t know, why don’t you calm the fuck down?’

‘I’m sorry, it’s just that looking at my dead sister’s blood is bumming me the fuck out!’

‘I’m bummed out, too! Would you stop taking it out on me?’

‘Fine!’ Peter grumbled, and then added sincerely, ‘Sorry.’

Wanda took a photograph of the bed and the stain.

‘What were you doing out there, anyway?’ Peter asked her.

‘I don’t know—I just got this feeling.’ Wanda said.

There was a knock at the door. Wanda started.

‘It’s a cop.’ Peter told her. The only sign that he’d gone anywhere was that his goggles were over his eyes and his hair looked a little tussled.

‘That was quick.’ She observed.

‘Well, they do call me Quicksilver, and not just because it sounds cool.’ Peter said, grinning for the first time since they’d left the US.

‘I mean, it’s not as goofy as Magneto.’ Wanda smirked back.

‘Yeah, but people can actually remember it, Scarlet Witch. Stay here, I’ll deal with it...’

‘No you wont. You hate cops.’

‘It’s safer if it’s me.’ Peter reassured her, ‘Besides—I do it all the time with the X-Men.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Alright. Just don’t do anything stupid. I don’t want you to get hurt.’

Peter patted her on the top of the head and smirked, ‘No one can hurt me, Wanda.’

And he disappeared.

Wanda wasn’t convinced.

 

Peter opened poked his head out of the door and gave the police officer a dismissive glance. ‘Yeah?’

‘My name is Vitaly Bakaj, Chief of Police. I’m sure you know why I’m here.’ The officer said in English, showing Peter his badge. He sounded calm. It was a good sign. When cops got nervous people died.

‘Who tipped you off?’ Peter folded his arms and squinted against the sun.

‘I’m afraid I couldn’t say.’ Bakaj said. It was probably a neighbour. ‘No one’s been to this house in quite some time.’

‘It’s my Dad’s place.’ 

‘Ah. I wasn’t aware that Lehnsherr had other children.’

‘Neither was he.’

‘May I ask—when did you last see your father?’

‘Not since the...’ Peter mimed an explosion.

‘Are you quite sure about that?’

‘Yep.’

Bakaj seemed dissatisfied, so Peter pulled his business card out of his back pocket and handed it to him. ‘I’m Peter Maximoff aka Quicksilver. I’m in the X-Men.’

Bakaj studied the card carefully, before tucking it into the breast of his trench coat. ‘You’re very highly regarded, ever since...’

‘Yeah… My sister Wanda’s upstairs. We just need to pick up some stuff that belongs to our family. Is that okay?’

‘Of course. The crime scene was released more than a year ago... I would like to speak at length with you, if at all possible. May I come in?’

‘Sure—okay.’ Peter showed the chief of police into the sitting room and immediately regretted it; the albums that were still strewn across the coffee table. Bakaj’s eyes travelled across the pictures of Magda and Nina. Peter stepped in front of him closed them as fast as he could without using his powers, unable hide his contempt.

Bakaj looked apologetic. ‘Might I speak with your sister?’

Peter didn’t see that he had a choice. He went into the hallway and shouted up the stairs: ‘Wanda, come down here!’

Wanda joined them in the living room.

‘This is...uh, the chief of police.’ Peter told her.

‘Vitaly Bakaj.’ Bakaj said, ‘I understand Erik Lehnsherr is you father. May I ask, when were you last in contact?’

‘Never met the guy.’ She told him, truthfully. She glanced at the photo albums. ‘Nina was our half sister. We didn’t even know she existed until after she died.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. By all accounts she was a lovely girl.’

 _Lovely girl._ The more Peter learned about her the more certain he became of it and the more he understood what he had missed out on.

‘That’s part of the reason we came here.’ Wanda went on, ‘We wanted to find out more about her. Magda, too. Were you in town when what happened, happened?’

Peter hated the way she tactfully danced around the reality of it. He wanted to say, _when my sister was murdered by your people._ Instead, he said nothing and tried not to scowl.

‘No, but I was here for the aftermath and subsequent investigation.’ Bakaj explained.

‘Really? We don’t actually know a lot about it. Maybe you could fill us in.’

‘If you wish. It was...I’ve seen many terrible things in my career, but this case, it was one of the worst.’

‘I don’t doubt it, but we can handle it.’

‘Perhaps we could go somewhere warmer?’ Bakaj suggested, ‘I know a coffee shop, not too far away.’

‘Sounds good.’

Peter shrugged. ‘Alright.’ was all he could say, even though it was very much not alright.

Bakaj took them to a coffee shop on the high street. It was only a twenty minute walk away, but it was tedious and slow. The polite conversation Wanda made with the policeman was exhausting. She let her guard down too easily. Bakaj was somewhat older than them, probably in his early forties; much of his hair had faded to a charcoal grey and his complexion was swarthy. Exactly Wanda’s type. Perhaps that was why she responded to him. Perhaps it was the non-threatening, professional demeanour and the fact that she, unlike Peter, had never been in trouble with the police.

 

The shop was warm and crowded, and they took their coats off as soon as they got in the door. They seated themselves by the window whilst Bakaj got the coffee, knees knocking together under the table.

‘Do you mind?’ Peter said.

Wanda scooted her chair away as much as she could without bumping into the person seated behind her. It didn’t make much of a difference. ‘He seems nice.’ Wanda said, referring to the policeman.

‘Are you kidding me?’ Peter kept his voice down, ‘Cops aren’t nice, Wanda. Just remember what they did to our sister.’

Wanda sighed and looked at the bunch of dried flowers on the table until Bakaj returned. It was impossible to talk to Peter when he was like this.

‘There was an accident at the steelworks factory.’ Bakaj told them, when they had their coffee in front of them, ‘A crucible fell from its cradle and Lehnsherr, who was employed as an engineer, used his powers to prevent a man from being crushed. Of course, this revealed his identity and he was reported to the authorities.

‘The then chief of police and several of his men attended the Lehnsherr residence. Due to the nature of his abilities they took with them wooden bows and arrows instead of guns.’

‘Oh Jeez...’ Peter moaned.

‘Do you wish for me to continue?’

Wanda nodded. She was perfectly composed.

‘The chief of police and his men were found in the woods at the back of the house. All dead. Killed by a metallic projectile. Madga and Nina Lehnsherr were found tucked into their beds. Their wounds indicated...’

‘Oh, man.’ Peter rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

Bakaj paused for a moment, before pressing on, ‘Apparently Lehnsherr and his family were confronted in the woods, and there was an altercation. Nina and Magda were shot, perhaps by accident, and Lehnsherr lashed out. Not long after, there was a… strange incident at the steelworks which resulted in the deaths of every last man. Lehnsherr was almost certainly involved, and En Sabah Nur, I suspect, although it couldn’t be proven.’

Wanda glanced at her brother. He was hunched in his seat, hiding his face.

Bakaj continued, ‘I wish I had been there that day, and that I could have stopped it all from happening. All I can do is offer my sincerest condolences.’

‘A bow and arrow!’ Peter exclaimed.

‘Why don’t you drink your coffee?’ Wanda told him, sipping on her own.

Peter drank his coffee.

‘Can you tell us where they’re buried?’ Wanda asked the chief of police.

‘As I recall, it was at the Church of Saint Maria on Main Street.’

And Peter was gone.

‘He’s an emotional person.’ Wanda explained, ‘Obviously what you just told us was pretty… messed up.’

‘Indeed it is. I have my duties to attend to, if you’ll excuse me. If you hear from your father again I hope you’ll get in touch.’

Wanda nodded.

‘Once again, Miss Maximoff, I’m very sorry for your loss.’

‘Thank you.’

Bakaj’s eyes were kind and sincere. Wanda didn’t doubt that things would have gone differently if he’d been in town on the day of the accident at the steelworks. But it was no use dwelling on could-have-beens. She shut the thought down before it could get out of control.

The chief of police left.

Wanda drank the rest of her coffee. Outside the window, people passed and fallen leaves, red and brown, tumbled across the sidewalk and gathered in clumps in the gutters.

The graveyard was wasn’t far. Wanda stopped to by lilies at a flower stand. She wondered if anyone had ever laid flowers at that grave. Where Madga’s family were, if she had any. If they’d gone to the funeral.

Wanda found Peter lying on his side on the mound of grass, under which their sister and her mother would lie for eternity. She couldn’t be angry with him, anymore. ‘I brought flowers.’ She said, impotently.

Peter moaned.

‘You’re not crying, are you?’

‘No.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes!’

‘Okay. Can you please get up? I need to lay these flowers.’

Peter sat up. He wasn’t crying, but he did look miserable.

‘For God’s sake, Peter, you’re sitting on a grave.’

‘The grave of my DEAD SISTER! They shot her with a bow and arrow—a bow and arrow! What the fuck!’

‘I know. I’m mad, too!’

Wanda offered her free hand to Peter and helped him up. He was stiff from the chill of the earth. She read the headstone:

_Madga Gurzsky_

_Nina Gurzsky_

The names were accompanied by the dates of birth and death. Nina’s were depressingly close together. Wanda wondered what they were doing in a church graveyard. Perhaps Madga was a Christian. Perhaps she wasn’t religious at all and Christian burial was the default around here, like it was in the US.

Wanda set the flowers down beside the headstone and took a picture. She’d documented everything so far, and it seemed important to keep going, even though she couldn’t imagine ever wanting to look at any of the photographs she’d taken. Perhaps Erik would want them. Perhaps in the future they’d have historical value.

‘Today sucks. I hate it.’ Peter said, slipping back into Serbian.

‘Me, too.’ Wanda agreed. ‘Do you wanna to go back to the house and finish packing?’

‘I can’t. I’m sorry. I just can’t.’

‘It’s okay—I’ll do it, later. Maybe tomorrow.’

‘I don’t think Erik’ll be able to look at that stuff.’

‘Then I’ll look after it for him.’

‘But you don't know him...’

Wanda leaned her head against his shoulder. ‘I know, but I’ll do it, anyway. Come on, lets go back to the hotel.’

They hadn’t spoken Serbian in years. Wanda was rusty (albeit less so than Peter) and it didn’t feel natural like it used to, but it felt good all the same.

Since they had time to kill they took a leisurely pace, stopping at a stall on the high street to buy perohy. The pastry was sweet and crisp, and flakes of it collected in Wanda’s scarf.

‘So, were you into Detective Daddy Issues, or what?’ Peter said in English, grinning widely.

‘That’s rich!’ Wanda said, giving him a playful push.

The afternoon was drawing on and the sun was slung low in the bright, clear sky. Its glare got in their eyes and made them squint. Peter enjoyed his perohy. Already the bad feelings were starting to lift.


End file.
